Is God Dishonored When We Grieve?

0:01 Just this week, my dad sent me a link to an old song sung by a gospel singer who's one of his favorites. Maybe you've heard the song, I would guess many in this room have not, called His Eye is on the Sparrow. Okay, so a few.

0:23 And the chorus goes, I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free, for his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. That is often the case that we sing because we're happy.

0:48 Song is often identified with joy. But my question here for us in these few minutes is, are there other reasons to sing than because we're already happy? The book of Psalms gives us saint after saint and psalm after psalm that weren't written from happiness, not immediately, not easy circumstances. They sang because they were sad. They sang because they were grieving. They sang from disorientation, from confusion, from fear. They sang because they were lonely or guilty or ashamed. Now, it's not all the Psalms.

1:41 There are many Psalms of praise where they sing because they're happy. And Psalms of Thanksgiving where they sing because they feel gratitude. But more songs than not in the Psalms are what's called laments. 50 or 60 of the 150 Psalms. The most common type of Psalm in the Bible is a lament where some grievous cause, some pain, some suffering, some sadness gives rise to the need and desire for singing. At the Ministry of Desiring God, we are committed to and we celebrate the pervasive biblical reality that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. We think and believe, the Bible teaches, that the good shepherd looks really good when his sheep thrive, when they're happy, when they're contented.

2:48 which raises a question for us and for all Christians, what about sadness? Maybe you came in here tonight and we're supposed to sing, magnify the Lord with me. You're carrying some sadness, some burden. If God is honored in his people's joy, how do we approach the many difficult circumstances in our lives, the unavoidable sorrows, the griefs that we face all the time as Christians in this fallen world? To put a point on it, is God dishonored when his people grieve? does sadness in God's people taint his glory in his people In a few minutes here, we're going to sing together what we like to call our signature song at Desiring God.

3:56 It is the hymn, It Is Well. Maybe more of you know that one than His Eyes on the Sparrow. And It Is Well starts like this. When peace like a river attendeth my way. That's good. Peace. Happy. and then when sorrows like sea billows roll just imagine the the waves of sorrow that are coming you see them coming you know they're going over your head whatever my lot god has taught us to say it is well it is well with my soul Sorrows like sea billows have been especially real for my family here just this fall. We know four families very well from our son's baseball.

4:54 Spent all summer with these families. And on the first day of school in late August, all the students are gathered for an opening mass at a Catholic school and a gunman shoots through the windows, enters hundreds of rounds into the room where there's 400 kids. My 10-year-old and 8-year-old daughters have a 9-year-old friend. They've run around with it at baseball games all summer, shot three times. All four families who we know well and have deeply in our lives had kids in the room when the gunman open fire and we have mourned with them we felt the heaviness of it as close as we've been to one of these situations and then not long afterwards this is just last month a dear friend of ours 40 years old father of three coach math teacher at the high school a lay pastor who frequently preaches, fell, broke his neck.

5:57 He was airlifted down to the Twin Cities where I live and visited him the next night in the hospital. We've grieved with them in these last few weeks. And remarkably, when I first saw Jake in the ICU walk up, our eyes meet, he says, he's at this point paralyzed from his shoulders down has no feeling no movement he looks me in the eye and he says I have my brain and I have my soul and what I heard him communicating in that moment was it is well with my soul I want to live like that I want to sing in those moments when there's plenty of sorrows like sea billows rolling.

6:49 So let me be clear here where the sorrows and the sadness come from. That was not part of the original creation. Sorrow and sadness entered our world because of human sin and because of God's curse on our world because of our sin. They remind us of the human sin in which we all share. And so that means that our sorrows in this age can be holy sorrows and unholy sorrows. This is important. Sometimes in our world, there's the assumption that all sorrows are bad or the counter-argument that all sorrows must be good.

7:34 But biblically, there's good sorrows and bad sorrows. so the Apostle Paul talks about excessive sorrow in 2nd Corinthians 2 7 and on the other side of that there can be insufficient sorrow a time when you should mourn and you don't or a misplaced sorrow like the rich young ruler who heard from Jesus that he could have Jesus if he would just released his grasp on his stuff.

8:11 And Luke 18 says, when he heard these things from Jesus, he became very sad for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. That's misplaced sorrow. That is not holy sorrow. but not all sadness is unholy far from it the bible gives us examples over and over again of holy godly appropriate mature sorrow like grief over the unbelief of loved ones like paul in romans 9 or grief over a final parting with somebody you love like acts 20 or grief over the death of someone you love. That's appropriate. It's good sorrow. Or grief over unjust suffering because of Jesus. This is 1 Peter 2, verse 19. This is a gracious thing when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. It's a good thing. It's a gracious thing to endure suffering for Jesus' sake, mindful of God, and endure those sorrows.

9:35 And there's grief over our sin, the kind of grief, Paul says, that leads to repentance. In 2 Corinthians 7, I rejoice, he says, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

10:06 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you. So godly grief, holy sorrow is not like the world's grief. So very memorably in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul talks about Christians not grieving like those who have no hope. It's a different grief. And Paul doesn't say to Christians, don't grieve. You have Jesus, don't grieve. He says, there are real losses in this age, this world of sin and curse. We grieve. And we don't grieve like the world without hope. We grieve with hope. For the Christian, hope is not a thin wish or a dream. Hope is confidence that the God who has made promises is going to make good on his promises.

11:04 So grief and sorrow, if that's what you came in here with tonight, or you've been through a season, or you have it coming, grief and sorrow in this age are not just allowable in the Christian life and in a room of worship, but it can be holy and even necessary. It is a good thing to cry at the right time.

11:34 Like the man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief, Isaiah prophesied about Jesus. In John 11, his friend who he loves, Lazarus, has died. he comes to Bethany he sees his sister Martha then his sister Mary John 11 when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled and he said where have you laid him they said to him Lord come and see Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him, which is a really good observation. You see love in grief. When you really love someone, you grieve their loss.

12:39 What you grieve reveals what and whom you love. but Jesus didn't only feel our sorrows when he was among us Isaiah also says he carried them he bore our sorrows he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And by his wounds, we are healed. and because of Jesus's work on our behalf carrying our sorrows bearing our griefs a day is coming where there will be no more sorrows every tear will be wiped away death shall be no more nor shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore here's the way Isaiah talks about it all the way back 700 years before Jesus he says the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing everlasting joy shall be upon their heads they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

14:12 So that's the day that's coming. But that's not the day that's here yet. It's not where we live yet. So let me close with this. For now, how do joy and sorrow relate? On the one hand, they coexist in the Christian life. Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 6 about being sorrowful yet always rejoicing the sorrows didn't push the joy out the joy was deeper it was thicker it helped him endure, they coexisted so don't think that to have joy you got to push out all the sorrows or that when sorrows comes it pushes out all the joy they coexist in the Christian life and in 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 6 and 7 he says in the living hope of Jesus risen from the dead he's a living hope in him you rejoice there's joy though for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials you rejoice though you're grieved so joy and sadness coexist in the Christian life and secondly and finally sorrows now prepare us for greater joy to come the joy will be greater in the end because of enduring sorrows now by faith and so Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4 17 that our slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. In this age, that mingling of joy and sorrow in the Christian life is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory and its surpassing joy.

16:15 at Desiring God we have this phrase that we put with our favorite slogan about God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him we add this phrase especially in suffering we don't say even in suffering we could say that that's true even in suffering but more than just even, we say, especially in suffering. For now, willingness to experience sadness and sorrow is not a concession for joy-seeking Christians, but it's an opportunity. And it's even a necessity. For now, we cannot pursue the deepest and most enduring joy without our willingness to grieve the joys that we lose.

17:12 And for now, we say especially in suffering, we experience sorrows like sea billows, and they are real sorrows, and we grieve them. Oh, we grieve them. And real joy in God enables us to grieve them and not drown in them because we can say, eat as well with my soul. Would you pray with me? So Father in heaven, as we reflect here on why we sing,

17:52 many of us do sing because we're happy and many of us sing because we are seeking joy. singing is not just an expression of wellness singing is because we want more of Jesus we want to experience more of him so draw near to us now those who are happy and especially in suffering especially in sorrows